Bad News On The Doorstep
by Benji The Vampire Confuser
Summary: Cordelia is dead, but never forgotten. One by one, her friends and enemies speak at her funeral.


**Bad News**

**Part of the Omniverse Project**

**by Benji the Vampire Confuser**

I don't own any of these folks, except for Joe. He's an original character. Everyone else I lay the blame, er, give the credit to Joss Whedon.

* * *

**Seattle Washington**

**Thursday February 5th**

**9:00 am**

"Joe?"

His eyes opened blearily. This wasn't Woodstock. But already that weird dream with him playing backup for Garth Brooks and the Who was starting to fade. He sat up and looked at the clock, groaning.

"Joe?"

"Yeah?" he called, answering his mom. _Better be good to get me up this early._ he thought.

"Your cell phone is ringing."

Now that she mentioned it, he did hear the electronic beeping of the Entertainer echoing from somewhere in the rented house. He got out of the bed, wincing at the cold floor till he found his fuzzy slippers that looked like big poofy sneakers.

Now where had he left the phone? He looked around the room, he still refused to call it "his" room. His family had rented this house in Seattle using money from the insurance on their old house in Sunnydale. Act of God his ass. Act of Slayer was more like it. He'd been there, driving the getaway van. The one that turned out to be superfluous when Principal Robin had gotten behind the wheel of the school bus.

Now, here he was, no longer moping about dead friends, resting from a tour with his band.

Ah, there was the phone. He glanced at the number. Crap.

"Wolfram and Hart." he muttered. "I said no, and I meant no!" he growled. He'd never REALLY gotten along with Angel. Yeah he was still holding a grudge against him a bit for killing his childhood friend and secret crush Theresa. Then there was that whole killing a few of his other friends in High School. And then breaking his promise to protect Ben. Okay well that wasn't fair, Angel really had tried to stop Ben from becoming a Vampire.

"Hello?" Joe said pleasantly. "What's up?"

He'd expected to hear Lorne try once again to get him to sign with their record labels. That's not what he heard.

"Oh...oh my god. Did she...she s-suff-" He barely heard the reassurances. "Have you called Buffy?"

"Well no." Angel admitted. "She kinda doesn't trust me these days."

"Gee I wonder why." Joe muttered. Aloud he said "This news should come from you man."

"No," Angel insisted. "It should come from someone she trusts."

"In other words you're scared to call her."

There was no answer to that one. "I'll call her." he said. "Have any arrangements been made?"

"I called her parents. They're gonna let me know on the funeral."

"Okay. I'll call you back."

He clicked off before Angel could say anything else.

For a few minutes Joe just sat there. Cordelia Chase was dead. The Scourge of Sunnydale High. The butt of endless rantings in the drama club, the object of loathing by him, and most of his friends. He let the tears come, but forced his voice to remain steady as he made the call.

* * *

**Rome Italy**

**February 5th**

**4:00 am**

Oh hell no. No the phone was not ringing at 4 am. Whoever it was was gonna learn that Slayers were grumpy in the morning. But the little sister of a Slayer was ten times worse.

"What." Dawn growled, not opening her eyes, having groped for the phone in the dark. She grew less grumpy when she caught the tremor in the caller's voice. "Joe what's wrong?"

* * *

**Oxnard California**

**February 7th**

Angel, Spike and Harmony weren't there. Well they were, but the had to stay in the Limo so as not to burn to a cinder.

Spike really hadn't known Cordelia. Even when he'd been playing the Big Bad in Sunnydale. Far as he'd been concerned she was just another one of the Slayer's groupies. Still, it wasn't good that she was dead. Spike had always been a big supporter of happy endings for couples. And Angel, prat that he was, didn't deserve to have a girl torn from him like this. He'd chosen to give up Buffy. But Cordy...well. He knew the last person Angel wanted to hear from was him. So he kept silent. Besides. Harmony was providing plenty of keening and wailing for the both of them.

The tears just wouldn't stop coming. Cordelia was her best friend. Yeah okay she was evil, and she'd once or twice tried to kill Cordy but...it wasn't right.

"It's not right!" Harmony wailed, bleeding fresh tears onto Spike's coat. "All those years, surviving Sunnydale only to die like this."

Angel meanwhile, was watching the ceremony through binoculars, and the hidden microphone that Wesley was wearing. He'd tuned out Harmony long ago. He wanted to cry. Hell, he wanted to jump out of the damn car, sunlight or no sunlight. He wanted to do a lot of things. And at the same time, he didn't want to do anything. Why go on? Now even his hope that she would wake up, and come back to him was gone. But he had to go on. That was why she'd come back. To get him back on track. So he would go on. Somehow.

"Cordelia was, well she was my first." Xander said, his voice catching. "My first girlfriend. Which, heh, which was weird because, well growing up we couldn't stand each other. I mean, full blown, look of a thousand deaths hatred. Guess it kind of made sense then. There was a lot I wished I could have said to her. Sorry for one. But in the end, I'm just glad that, the last time we saw each other, it was on good terms."

Willow refrained from giving a eulogy. She just couldn't think of what to say. She and Cordy had never really been friends. And she was told that the last time she'd seen Queen C, she'd really not been herself. But she was proud of Cordy. Proud of how she'd matured, proud of everything she'd heard about her after high school. She wished she could have gotten to know that Cordelia.

Dawn had barely known Cordelia. But she'd hated her. She hated that she'd made Willow sad, Xander ashamed of himself and his life, and Buffy angry. But she'd gotten better. Dawn grudgingly decided maybe Cordelia hadn't been so bad after all.

"Cordelia was my sworn enemy." Buffy said, grinning sadly. "I mean from cheerleader tryouts, to Homecoming Queen, to boyfriends...How bizzarro is it that she wound up being someone I could trust with my life? Truth is, I saw a lot of myself in her. How I used to be. In how she used to be. When it comes down to it, She was one of the best of us."

Giles likewise refrained from making a speech. He didn't know how to say anything appropriate that wouldn't reveal too much about Buffy. About the Slayers. He'd never met a more irritating girl. And yet she'd tried. When she found out just what was going on around her, a hero had emerged from that self centered, tactless young woman. Wasn't right. She'd barely begun to tap her potential. Wasn't right.

"Cordelia was one of the nicest, most caring people I'd ever met." Fred said softly. "She was so strong, she made everyone else around her have to be strong too..." she tried to go on, but couldn't. Wesley put his arm around her and began to speak his piece.

"Cordelia was, was a remarkable young lady." he said. "No matter what hardships she faced, no matter the horrors she had to deal with, she never lost her dignity, her grace. She'd wanted to be an actress, and while that didn't work out, she did find a place in this world. Friends, family. We should all be so lucky."

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved, a wretch...like me..." Lorne's voice shook now and again, but it was still, as beautiful as ever.

"Girl had fire." Gunn remembered. "I mean there was no stopping her from anything she set her mind on. Specially when it came to gettin' close to someone. No matter how hard I pushed folks away, she came right back. Guardian Angels got themselves a real player now."

"Queen C, they called her." Joe was the last to speak. "They being her gaggle of groupies. And I have to say, just how remarkable it is, that half of the people here, were people who back in high school would only have shown up to her funeral to make sure she was dead.

"I never really knew her in High School. Didn't want to. In high school, we're all in our own worlds. When we graduate, we have to deal with the rest of the world. Cordelia had to deal with a lot more than most of us do. And she dealt with it. Hollywood almost ate her alive. That's when I got to know her. I didn't like her in High School. After High School I counted her as one of the best people I knew. Couldn't act her way out of a paper bag," he laughed with the rest of them. "But that's because Cordelia was just too honest. There was no pretending with her. I miss her. I've uh, put together, with help and donations from friends and family, a musical montage of sorts."

With a press of a button, the TV screen behind him came to life.

Home movies, photos, strung together to music.

"I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner I'm a saint, I do not feel ashamed..."

We wouldn't want her any other way.

**Cordelia Chase**

**1981-2004**

Epilogue

Cordy stood off to the side, watching the proceedings.

"Nice isn't it." Doyle said, beside her.

"Yeah except for the fact that I'm dead."

"Eh," Tara said. "You get used to it."

"So what do dead people do for fun around here?" Cordy asked them.

The End


End file.
